Oh, and BWE, I have no idea why you worry about people who disagree with your stance on PZ....he's an ass...he is problematic to Darwin's message due to his militant, illogical stance on...well, on pretty much everything. Have a backbone, man.

Immutable Republican Inerrancy in action? BWE has shown himself to be humble, capable of introspection and learning and willing to consider other viewpoints. That's because he is smart and decent. I'm not saying he's right or wrong, but he has a good framework to move from wrong to right. "Stick to your guns" gets you a 6,000 year old earth and dis-invited from serious discussion.

OH AND IF ANYONE HAS LEWISISISS EMAILS CAN YOU EMAILS HIM AND TELL HIM THAT I MISS HIM AND I NO THAT THE KIDS NOT HIS NOW BUT I'M NOT RETURNING ANY OF THE MONEY HE GAVE ME BUT ID LIKE TO PICK THINGS UP AGAIN WHERE WE LEFT OF AND IM SORRY ABOUT THE HAIRY ARSE THING IT WAS A JOKE AND IT MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN A DINGLEBERRY ANSYWAY SOMETIME STUFF JUST FALLS DOWN THERE LIKE BEEF JERKY OR RAYSINS.

Rich: sent him a SMS, didn't mention you. Maybe it was a mistake not to...

Louis: "...sick to the back teeth..."

Damn I like that expression! Never heard it before. Can't say me dad ever uttered it growing up, so I don't know if it's an English thing, a regional thing, or just a thing one picks up, but darn it...I likes it!

...and it's so Louis! ;)

ETA: Ha ha...Louis is off is meds!

There...I said it. That will bring him back just to beat me or lambast my thoughtlessness if nothing else.

Edited by Robin on Mar. 22 2012,15:47

--------------we IDists rule in design for the flagellum and cilium largely because they do look designed. Bilbo

The only reason you reject Thor is because, like a cushion, you bear the imprint of the biggest arse that sat on you. Louis

Rich: sent him a SMS, didn't mention you. Maybe it was a mistake not to...

Louis: "...sick to the back teeth..."

Damn I like that expression! Never heard it before. Can't say me dad ever uttered it growing up, so I don't know if it's an English thing, a regional thing, or just a thing one picks up, but darn it...I likes it!

...and it's so Louis! ;)

ETA: Ha ha...Louis is off is meds!

There...I said it. That will bring him back just to beat me or lambast my thoughtlessness if nothing else.

Oh, and BWE, I have no idea why you worry about people who disagree with your stance on PZ....he's an ass...he is problematic to Darwin's message due to his militant, illogical stance on...well, on pretty much everything. Have a backbone, man.

Ftk, it's fine if you don't understand. I don't feel like I brown nosed. I feel like I set him up by indicating that I wanted to argue a point. I never did. He set himself up for a kind of a major time investment because, and this is the part that matters, because I asked him to. The unwritten I guess but still perfectly well understood ethic among the regulars on this site anyway, certainly including louis, is intellectual integrity.

I entered a transaction which really did obligate me, maybe not you or someone else, but it did obligate me, to a set of expectations which I hope for from others here sometimes and I simply took his effort and didn't even show it the respect of an attempt to fulfill my end of the deal. An end which, though it may not be apparent to you, is apparent to me.

Louis is an asshole mean ass sonofabitch sometimes, blind to his weaknesses, arrogant to a fault even, but he paid me the respect I asked for and laid out his case. And despite hid stubborness and any other negative quality which you may want tp assign him, they pale to insignificance before the 2 qualities which he has never ever wavered from in my interactions with him, unflinching honesty and intellectual integrity. He might make you exhaust every single silly detail imaginable in a discussion, but when he recognizes error, it is recognized and the discussion moves on. He does not sacrifice truth to his ego. He doesn't lie (here, in the sort of discussion I started) because lies are not part of the discovery of truth.

Louis is a chemist. That is a fairly rigorous type of science, dealing with painfully delicate measurement and materials handling issues. Truth is a precious commodity in his realm of investigation. You are unlikely meet 10 people in your life who are as willing to discard their own faulty beliefs the moment they fail in internal consistency or to correspond to observation, acknowledge error with little fanfare, and amend their understanding to reflect new information as louis has been here.

And I feel pretty safe saying that really because evolution isn't a plot. It's simply the best fitting model available to us which explains what we observe and predicts what will be in the next blank. Religion I fear is dealing its own death blow by blatantly denying the actual truth of the existence of data which is available any person with an internet connection and a car that will take them to the closest natural history museum to protect the meaningless truths of religion, the ones which were old science and have been amended to include more and better information at the cost of tbhe truths which do mean something. The ones which haven't been replaced with better truths. To save noah you will sacrifice jesus.

It does color my interactions with you somewhat to be honest. But I still offer you honest explanations and answers without too much judgment. I never had to let go of that kind of truth so I don't pretend to know how hard it is. However, the argument is over. The physical universe is what we model with science. Any statement or question you can make about the physical universe is a scientific question.

The creationist ID argument really is "breathtaking inanity" to someone who understands the value of self-honesty as it applies to truth. That is not a dig by the way. When measurement was difficult and precision was poor, the rules were that faith does a pretty good job of keeping us alive. Don't just let go of this precious gift in favor any tom dick or harry that happens by. Any truth is valuable, precious even. And they needed to at least not obviously fail to make into the holy word, the collection of almost every single truth known to man at the time.

No, I don't fault you for choosing to hold onto a truth rather than let someone trick you into taking a worse one.

But once a better truth emerges, the value of the old one is erased. If you refuse to believe in the hyperinflation of the Wiemar republic, could not accept that your money had become worthless, the option to stay at home and look at it, pretending it still has value may avert the shock of coping for some time, a lifetime even if you have enough stored supplies, but you didn't save the value. You saved the symbol.

Something about False Idols comes to mind but it's not quite there. Regardless. my own regret concerning the possible rejection by association of our truths about ourselves preserved largely in the same texts beside the failed truths, occasionally tugs at me. But I have read those texts very carefully and done my best to remind people I know that there might be a baby in the bathwater of the same bibles that the evangelicals slander with every time they pass a reference to Ken Ham or Jack Chick without taking a stand and rejecting hate as hate. Ignorance as ignorance and propaganda as propaganda.

But, if you decide to take a moral stand against their dishonesty and hateful behavior, maybe you can avoid the mistake of my poor example. Simply refuse to legitimize it. Don't forget your other obligations in your zealousness regardless of the depth of your emotional rejection, because you might not notice if you go too far. And too, there is no real gain in fighting the other side. The better truth always wins. Instead demand integrity from your own side. Reject hate speech and bigotry wherever you encounter it.

Because opposing sides don't police each other fairly. If you really value truth, you do your part over there, I'll do my part over here, and we can compare notes over a couple of bong hits and bottle of bourbon every saturday at 9:00am before the equal protection for all people strategy session at 9:30am.

I'm speaking for louis here since he's not here to speak for himself, both Louis and I visited enough to be regulars here (even though I've been a lot less active since 2008) because encountered a common ethic that honesty and truth are basically valued above all else in this particular digital microcosm. While it offers no sanctuary from criticism or protection from pet beliefs that don't do well outside, it also offers a community who each are willing to call someone out on any perceived error and are intolerant of any breaches in honesty or intellectual integrity no matter where the source. From my perspective, I broke that compact in this case.

Anyway, even without thinking about it I paid the respect I felt needed to be paid to my obligation to answer with a thoughtful and considered response even though you may not feel I owe it to you. I certainly don't hold you to the standards which I do indeed hold louis to. Again, I respect your inclination to hold your cards. That is your choice.

But we use different systems and I do not cash the currency your truths are minted in. Sorry. I respect that you like them but I value transparency and require agreement between prediction and experience from my truths, I do not trust someone else to verify my truths. I am quite competent to assess the ones I encounter on my own almost every time.

What I did to PZ, I am comfortable with and feel no need to apologize for. What I did to louis I am not comfortable with and I owe him an apology. And that's why I apologized. It isn't brown nosing to me. Or I guess i don't care how you see it. It was me who felt the need to try to at least acknowledge my mistake and offer my apology.

Hope that explains it. If he comes back, I won't owe him agreement but an honest and considered explanation for my opinion.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Rich: sent him a SMS, didn't mention you. Maybe it was a mistake not to...

Louis: "...sick to the back teeth..."

Damn I like that expression! Never heard it before. Can't say me dad ever uttered it growing up, so I don't know if it's an English thing, a regional thing, or just a thing one picks up, but darn it...I likes it!

...and it's so Louis! ;)

ETA: Ha ha...Louis is off is meds!

There...I said it. That will bring him back just to beat me or lambast my thoughtlessness if nothing else.

It ought to have been. I'm on my 3rd day of the really awful flue. Advil have been keeping my fever down to about 100. I don't feel nauseous but food is totally unappealing so I'v e mostly had v-8 juice, water and vitamin c to survive on. Haven't slept for more than 3 hours at a stretch either. Delirium is my most reliable muse.

Anyway, I wanted to set ftk straight in case she thought I was on her side in the culture wars or something. :)

ETA: it was the comparing notes part that started the tears wasn't it?

Edited by BWE on Mar. 23 2012,08:34

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Anyway, I wanted to set ftk straight in case she thought I was on her side in the culture wars or something. :)

bahahahahaha.....as if. Not to worry...I'll never consider you "on my side" in regard to the "culture wars". I've found the cultures wars are much more prominent on line than in the real world. Hence, I've turned my back on all the Internet arguing bullshit for the most part. Horrific waste of time unless one is doing it for sport.

--------------"Evolution is a creationism and just as illogical [as] the other pantheistic creation myths" -forastero

Anyway, I wanted to set ftk straight in case she thought I was on her side in the culture wars or something. :)

bahahahahaha.....as if. Not to worry...I'll never consider you "on my side" in regard to the "culture wars". I've found the cultures wars are much more prominent on line than in the real world. Hence, I've turned my back on all the Internet arguing bullshit for the most part. Horrific waste of time unless one is doing it for sport.

Perhaps you should hang out with other people. All it takes is watching a news clip of Rick Santorum to know that the culture wars are not confined to the interwebs. You display the same obliviousness and lack of curiosity now that I've always said you possess.

While that is somewhat of a dig, it is mostly (80% or so) a call to intellectual honesty. If you read my first paragraph it should cause you to re-evaluate your statement. Perhaps you will not agree with my assessment, but you should be able to justify your disagreement. You won't because you are uninterested in doing so. IMO, that is the main difference between you and folks like BWE and louis.

Anyway, I wanted to set ftk straight in case she thought I was on her side in the culture wars or something. :)

bahahahahaha.....as if. Not to worry...I'll never consider you "on my side" in regard to the "culture wars". I've found the cultures wars are much more prominent on line than in the real world. Hence, I've turned my back on all the Internet arguing bullshit for the most part. Horrific waste of time unless one is doing it for sport.

Well, that's true. I live in Portland and I don't really know a single fundamentalist. I know of a couple who I encounter at work occasionally but religion around here isn't the kind that you notice. It's more the jesus type christians we have here than the Leviticus christians. Darwin fish and spaghetti monster fish are common enough but you notice the car that has a jesus fish because its been a few days or a week since you saw the last one. Sometimes a little overflow from the crazies presses at the periphery of town and threatens our little paradise, more often in the form of republicans or walmarts than actual christians but I remember when Luis Palau or something did this big revival at the waterfront park and the big long church vans trucked in like thousands of people from the compounds in the hills I guess or somewhere. It was a wild caravan for sure. Ayway, another 10000 people or so came out to see the christians!

Most of them were pretty decent. I don't think there was any violence or anything. I went down for a while. It was a really nice day so I figured I should since it wasn't an everyday thing and all.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

I wasn't going to pile on here, since this thread is about Louis-baiting.*

But anyone who thinks the culture war is mostly on the internet is truly ignorant of the US and most of the rest of the world.

We have not one, but two potential presidential candidates who think that winning the culture war means the establishment of a US Theocracy where the rich are almighty and everyone else is a serf with no rights. Note that under Santorum (and probably Romney) all women, by definition, would be serfs.

We already live in a society where good things are shot down for political reasons and stupid things are promoted for both political and personal wealth reasons (of which we serfs aren't getting any).

We live in a society where a teacher burns a bunch of kids with a tesla coil, ignores directives from his superiors, and lies to the students he supposed to be teaching, but he's a martyr because he was religiously discriminated against.

I could go on and on about this.

Don't tell me the culture war is mostly on the internet. The culture war is right in front of you... you're just OK with the battles that are going on. I bet if an atheist rock band came to your kid's school and told the kids there was no heaven, no hell, this is all there is, you'd be pissed. But it's OK when a Christian band does it because you believe their message is the correct one.

Heck, it's not so much a culture war as simply a war for equality. Anything you can do, I get to do... unless I'm an atheist, or gay, or a woman, or a pagan, or anything that's not Christian.

You may not agree with all the things I've mentioned. You may not agree with the majority of things that are occurring in this culture war. But, very simply, you are giving you tacit approval by not standing up for equal rights and the truth.

Personally, I think of Christianity as a bunch of liars. Because the only Christians I hear talking are the ones that are liars. I don't hear the silent ranks of the majority of Christians who aren't liars. I don't hear any Catholic priests saying how wrong it is to hide a child molester. I don't hear Baptist ministers talking about how you shouldn't threaten gays with death. Again, I could go on and on.

I'm sorry, I have gone on and on. But the blind hypocrisy of the religious continually stuns me. Even when it's pointed out to them, they won't do anything about it.

Then they have the nerve to demand that everyone in this country behave exactly as they do. Actually, they are requiring that we behave exactly as they SAY to do, not as they actually DO. They decry birth control, yet have that prescription for viagra in their pocket.

Ok, I'm done. Back to Louis baiting.

____

* If you are really good at Louis-baiting... are you a Louis master-baiter?

--------------Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

I wasn't going to pile on here, since this thread is about Louis-baiting.*

But anyone who thinks the culture war is mostly on the internet is truly ignorant of the US and most of the rest of the world.

We have not one, but two potential presidential candidates who think that winning the culture war means the establishment of a US Theocracy where the rich are almighty and everyone else is a serf with no rights. Note that under Santorum (and probably Romney) all women, by definition, would be serfs.

We already live in a society where good things are shot down for political reasons and stupid things are promoted for both political and personal wealth reasons (of which we serfs aren't getting any).

We live in a society where a teacher burns a bunch of kids with a tesla coil, ignores directives from his superiors, and lies to the students he supposed to be teaching, but he's a martyr because he was religiously discriminated against.

I could go on and on about this.

Don't tell me the culture war is mostly on the internet. The culture war is right in front of you... you're just OK with the battles that are going on. I bet if an atheist rock band came to your kid's school and told the kids there was no heaven, no hell, this is all there is, you'd be pissed. But it's OK when a Christian band does it because you believe their message is the correct one.

Heck, it's not so much a culture war as simply a war for equality. Anything you can do, I get to do... unless I'm an atheist, or gay, or a woman, or a pagan, or anything that's not Christian.

You may not agree with all the things I've mentioned. You may not agree with the majority of things that are occurring in this culture war. But, very simply, you are giving you tacit approval by not standing up for equal rights and the truth.

Personally, I think of Christianity as a bunch of liars. Because the only Christians I hear talking are the ones that are liars. I don't hear the silent ranks of the majority of Christians who aren't liars. I don't hear any Catholic priests saying how wrong it is to hide a child molester. I don't hear Baptist ministers talking about how you shouldn't threaten gays with death. Again, I could go on and on.

I'm sorry, I have gone on and on. But the blind hypocrisy of the religious continually stuns me. Even when it's pointed out to them, they won't do anything about it.

Then they have the nerve to demand that everyone in this country behave exactly as they do. Actually, they are requiring that we behave exactly as they SAY to do, not as they actually DO. They decry birth control, yet have that prescription for viagra in their pocket.

Ok, I'm done. Back to Louis baiting.

____

* If you are really good at Louis-baiting... are you a Louis master-baiter?

Fear mongering.....

You're crazy....it's the crazies like you who spread the BS that candidates who claim to be Christians are looking to form a theocracy. Anyone with even a quarter of a brain knows that would end up in absolute disaster.

The *crazy*, paranoid, conspiracy folks are the ones that go on and on and on and on about the evils of religion or atheism.

Fucking just get along. We have it all here where I live. People believe different things. For the most part, we live our lives and keep it to ourselves. I have friends who I know disagree with me about religion and politics or whatever, but when we know we've hit a hot button, we stop. What is so freaking hard about that?

Nothing will ever change as far as different belief systems...you must know that. Various levels of different beliefs will always be out there. What is the point in spewing hatred in regard to those opposing beliefs. I'll never get it. Ever.

Heck, we have gay and atheist groups at my kids high school. So what? My kids don't go to them of course because they don't agree with their beliefs.

I just think the whole freaking world needs to take a damn chill pill.

--------------"Evolution is a creationism and just as illogical [as] the other pantheistic creation myths" -forastero

yeah, why the hell should anyone believe what they actually fucking say or anything

sigh....share the statements where any of the candidates say they want to form a Christian theocracy. This doesn't mean if someone doesn't support abortion, they are going to form a "theocracy"...that's just retarded. You can have views that coincide with a religious belief...that doesn't mean you're in the race to establish a religious take over of the government. <eyes rolling>

Paranoia, pure and simple. If a candidate is a strong Christian, it's always "omg!!! The government is in the throws of a FREAKING TAKEOVER BY CHRISTIAN LOONS WHO ARE GOING TO TAKE AWAY ALLLLLL OUR RIGHTS!!!"

R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S.

--------------"Evolution is a creationism and just as illogical [as] the other pantheistic creation myths" -forastero

I'm not sure what you've been reading from Santorum, but he's fairly clear in a number of his statements regarding his belief that the bible should be used as the basis of our political and legislative policies. That, by definition, would be a Christian theocracy.

--------------we IDists rule in design for the flagellum and cilium largely because they do look designed. Bilbo

The only reason you reject Thor is because, like a cushion, you bear the imprint of the biggest arse that sat on you. Louis

I'm not sure what you've been reading from Santorum, but he's fairly clear in a number of his statements regarding his belief that the bible should be used as the basis of our political and legislative policies. That, by definition, would be a Christian theocracy.

The speech linked at RightWingWatch is a chilling, and nauseating, example of the sort of collectively held paranoid delusions that seem so often to characterize the Christian right.

--------------Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."- David Foster Wallace

"Hereâ€™s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."- Barry Arrington

I'm not sure what you've been reading from Santorum, but he's fairly clear in a number of his statements regarding his belief that the bible should be used as the basis of our political and legislative policies. That, by definition, would be a Christian theocracy.

sheeyit FtK has an answer for your factiness

Quote

R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S.

all ur base are belong to her

ETa

LOUIS HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS NOT GET YOU TO COME BACK YOUR GIRLFRIND IS HERE WAITING FOR YOU TO COME DOWNSTAIRS FOR CHRISTS SAKE GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE NOW!!!!1!!!!

Edited by Erasmus, FCD on Mar. 23 2012,15:43

--------------You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK

Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG